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A New Era in U.S.-Korea Relations?

What to Expect from the Trump-Moon Summit

On June 26, 2017, NBR and the Foreign Affairs Congressional Staff Association (FACSA) held a timely, informational briefing regarding the upcoming June 29–30 meeting between President Donald Trump and President Moon Jae-In of the Republic of Korea (South Korea). Our expert panelists provided a brief overview of the U.S.-ROK alliance, a summary of the issues facing this military and economic partnership, and an update on how the human rights situation in North Korea will play an important role in U.S.-ROK relations.

Speakers

Scott Snyder, Senior Fellow for Korea Studies and Director of the Program on U.S.-Korea Policy, Council on Foreign Relations

Moderator

Dan Aum, Director, Government and Media Relations, The National Bureau of Asian Research

Panelist Bios

Emma Chanlett-Avery is a specialist in Asian affairs in the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade division of the Congressional Research Service. She focuses on security issues in the region, including U.S. relations with North Korea, Japan, Thailand and Singapore. A graduate of Amherst College and the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, Ms. Chanlett-Avery joined CRS in 2003 through the Presidential Management Fellowship. She has also held positions in the State Department in the Office of Policy Planning and on the Korea Desk, as well as at the Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group in Bangkok, Thailand. Professional and academic fellowships include the Amherst-Doshisha Fellowship, the Harold Rosenthal Fellowship in International Relations, the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship in advanced Japanese, the American Assembly Next Generation Fellowship, and a U.S. Speaker and Specialist Grant from the U.S. Department of State. She currently serves on the Council on Foreign Relations Working Group on the U.S.-Japan Alliance.

Roberta Cohen is a specialist in human rights issues and a leading expert on internally displaced persons and on human rights conditions in North Korea. For more than a decade she was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and codirector of the Brookings Project on Internal Displacement together with the representative of the UN secretary-general on internally displaced persons. Ms. Cohen is co-chair emeritus of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), a distinguished group of foreign policy, human rights, and Asia experts, served as chair for four years and is the author of more than one hundred articles and op-eds in the human rights field, including on international policies toward North Korea. She is a member of the committee on conscience of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and a fellow at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University. Earlier, she served as deputy assistant secretary of state for human rights and senior adviser to U.S. delegations to the UN Commission on Human Rights and General Assembly. She is a graduate of Barnard College and Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and received an honorary doctorate from the faculty of law at the University of Bern in Switzerland.

Scott Snyder is senior fellow for Korea studies and director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where he had served as an adjunct fellow from 2008 to 2011. Prior to joining CFR, Mr. Snyder was a senior associate in the international relations program of The Asia Foundation, where he founded and directed the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy and served as The Asia Foundation’s representative in Korea (2000-2004). He was also a senior associate at Pacific Forum CSIS. Mr. Snyder has worked as an Asia specialist in the research and studies program of the U.S. Institute of Peace and as acting director of Asia Society’s contemporary affairs program. Mr. Snyder was a Pantech visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center during 2005-2006, and received an Abe fellowship, administered by the Social Sciences Research Council, in 199-99. He has provided advice to NGOs and humanitarian organizations active in North Korea and serves as co-chair of the advisory council of the National Committee on North Korea. Mr. Snyder has authored and co-edited numerous book chapters and articles on aspects of Korean politics and foreign policy. He served as the project director for CFR’s Independent Task Force on policy toward the Korean Peninsula. He currently writes for the blog, “Asia Unbound.” Mr. Snyder received a BA from Rice University and an MA from the regional studies East Asia program at Harvard University and was a Thomas G. Watson fellow at Yonsei University in South Korea.

Dan Aum is Director, Government and Media Relations, at The National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR). In this capacity, Mr. Aum leads NBR’s engagement with the U.S. Congress and the media. He works closely with NBR’s research group leaders and NBR’s executive team to develop and implement nonpartisan outreach strategies that integrate congressional needs and perspectives. Mr. Aum comes to NBR from Capitol Hill, where he managed a portfolio of thematic and regional issues related to foreign policy, international law, and human rights on the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. Previously, at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, Mr. Aum was on a strategic litigation team that brought cases before international and regional bodies, and led policy initiatives that involved regular engagement with government bodies and the media. He holds a JD from the George Washington University Law School and a BA in Philosophy from Baylor University.